Verticalnet Releases Upgrade of XE Spend Manager Application; Verticalnet's Spend Manager version 5.3 Upgrade Delivers a Global Solution that Empowers Sourcing Professionals to Direct the Spend Analysis Process.

MALVERN, Pa. -- Verticalnet, Inc. (Nasdaq:VERTD), a leading provider of on-demand supply management solutions, today announced that the newest release of its XE Spend Manager application has been deployed to both On Demand and self-hosted customers.

The Verticalnet XE Spend Manager application provides the intelligence necessary to drive increased savings through strategic sourcing. Customers can establish a repeatable process through self-service on-demand spend analysis and:

--Efficiently manage and classify spend data on a repeatable basis

--Uncover new savings opportunities through volume consolidation and supplier rationalization 

--Track purchasing and contract compliance through the analysis of purchase price variances 

--Quickly integrate M&A purchase history to identify procurement synergies

--Monitor supplier performance and risk across the enterprise

Verticalnet's previous release of XE Spend Manager was given a top rating by Forrester Research in a review of competitive supply management suites. Enhancements in the current release focused on broadening and deepening the areas which differentiate Verticalnet in the market. Spend Manager 5.3 enhancements were driven by Verticalnet's experience across hundreds of successful spend analysis projects in dozens of industries, and included substantial input from Verticalnet customers. The new release demonstrates Verticalnet's continued commitment to provide sourcing professionals with a self-service spend analysis solution that provides multiple approaches for classifying their data in a repeatable fashion, and enables the real-time management of company specific classification rules.

"Verticalnet XE Spend Manager 5.3 is a tremendous step forward for the sourcing professional," states James Wetekamp, Vice President of Solutions Strategy for Verticalnet. "The newly delivered classification exception management module places all of the control at the finger tips of the sourcing professional. The end-user is empowered to update classification rules, trigger data changes in real-time, and manage by exception." Wetekamp concludes, "This capability, coupled with the ability to classify data from any language, enables truly global spend analysis driven directly by the category experts themselves."

Verticalnet designed Spend Manager 5.3 to deliver enhanced functionality that will minimize the burden on the IT organization, arm the sourcing professional with tools to manage their categories, and maximize the percentage of spend accurately classified on a repeatable basis. Verticalnet Spend Manager 5.3 focuses on the following two broad areas which are critical implementing a global, self-managed, and repeatable spend analysis program:

--Classification Exception Management: The classification exception management module provides an intuitive control center for managing un-classified items and suppliers. Category Managers can quickly browse and create classification rules and recommendations, applying changes in real-time.

--Global Data Management: A suite of flexible data management tools allows for a broad range of information to be managed in conjunction with spend data. Data Managers can incorporate supplier attributes such as diversity details, contract terms including pricing conditions, relevant product details including inventory positions, and other supply management information into a dynamic analysis console for detailed analysis

The Verticalnet XE Spend Manager 5.3 release places complete control in the hands of the business user, providing the user with the ability to manage the classification approach, rule-overrides, and the external data enrichment process. In addition, the Verticalnet Spend Manager application can adapt to any level of information detail or data quality, in any language through its support of multiple approaches to spend classification including statistical auto-classification and rules based classification to either a customer-specific sourcing taxonomy or a standard taxonomy such as UNSPSC,

"Our newest release of XE Spend Manager represents the right product at the right time for sourcing professionals focused on truly gaining visibility and control of their global spend on a repeatable basis," stated Nathanael V. Lentz, President and CEO of Verticalnet. "Interest in our Spend Manager application has never been higher, our success in competitive opportunities has never been stronger, and it is clear that leading sourcing organization lead with spend visibility. With this new release, we believe that the best product just got better."

"Our research reveals that data classification is the highest priority for organizations performing spend analysis," states Sudy Bharadwaj, Vice President of Global Supply Management Research for Aberdeen Group. "The ability to immerse the user within this process to handle exceptions and provide real-time feedback into the process helps achieve this priority."

Key Benefits of Verticalnet Spend Manager Version 5.3

Classification Exception Management

--The classification exception management module drastically reduces the effort necessary to maintain accurate classifications. The classification exception summaries provide actionable links to classification exceptions allowing category managers to quickly access and create rules from classification exceptions.

--A summary statistics view of classification details by business unit provides top-level visibility to unclassified record counts and unclassified spend totals, to ensure that the largest exceptions are prioritized for classification. Additionally exceptions created from the last classification run are highlighted to clearly identify new exceptions in comparison to previous exceptions.

--User-defined parametric filters to classification rules allows the category manager to quickly create rules in bulk, based on parameters such as the product, supplier, business unit, or source system. Additionally, the user can save their favorite filters for use later in navigating classification exceptions and creating rules.

Global Data Management

--The Verticalnet transformation engine enables data managers to ensure high-quality analysis by applying validation rules to master data such as supplier data, contract data, and inventory data or spend activity data. The data exception editor provides the data manager with direct access to quarantined records caused by cleansing or validation exceptions, with a console to adjust or correct data errors.

--The Extract Summary provides the data manager with an enhanced view of in-process extracts. Data managers can quickly navigate files by status such as received, failed, processed, validated, cleansed, rolled back, and published. Summary statistic views by data source provide top-level visibility to record counts, files, and spend activity totals.

--The flexible master data management system allows for data managers to define new data sources for the automated data enrichment of spend information. These additional data sources can include supplier details such as diversity indicators or certification levels, contract terms such as list pricing, or rebate details, and product information such as sales forecasts or inventory positions of critical materials.

The Verticalnet XE Spend Manager is an integrated module of the Verticalnet XE Suite which includes:

--Verticalnet(R) Program Manager--lowers the total cost of ownership and improves productivity through sound and re-usable program and process management

--Verticalnet(R) Spend Manager--a fast, intelligent, and repeatable solution for identifying, evaluating, and quantifying enterprise-wide sourcing opportunities while measuring compliance

--Verticalnet(R) Negotiation Manager--accelerates and improves negotiated savings through online auctions and eRFX events

--Verticalnet(R) Procurement Manager--simplifies and improves control over the procurement process to help companies realize the maximum cost savings identified through supplier sourcing and negotiation

--Verticalnet(R) Contract Manager--provides real-time insights into contract obligations, exposures, expirations, changes and renewals delivering greater control, reducing costly oversights and minimizing supplier risk

--Verticalnet(R) Performance Manager--enables companies to effectively track and manage supplier performance, contract compliance and identify potential areas of supplier risk

To learn more, please visit us at www.verticalnet.com.